Highway One’s Hotel Dewey opens March 16

From Hudson Fields to the Rusty Rudder, Dewey-based Highway One Group has bookended, and then filled in, the Cape Region’s Route 1 corridor with many businesses.

The newest book on the company’s shelf, Hotel Dewey, opens Friday, March 16, for the town’s unofficial opening weekend.

“This weekend is completely booked,” said Alex Pires, Highway One Group owner, from his office on top of the Rusty Rudder recently.

Pires said the company bought the hotel, formerly the Sea Esta III, in May 2017 as part of a package deal that included the Sea Esta IV just north of Dewey and a laundromat in Rehoboth. He said he was really only interested in the hotel neighboring the Rusty Rudder and has already sold off the two other properties.

With the purchase made right before Memorial Day and most of the rooms booked for the season, Pires said the decision was made to run the hotel as usual and then focus on rebranding this past winter. He said the plan is to have the hotel open through the first weekend in November.

For this weekend, the only real change customers will notice is the black and white Hotel Dewey sign where the Sea Esta III sign once was. More changes are on the way in the not-too-distant future.

Pires said the plan is paint the entire building white, for a cleaner, more upscale look. He said the rooms will be recarpeted and renovated.

The upscale look will come at the cost of the “Dewey Beach – Sunrise to Sunset” mural painted on the southside of the hotel by Lewes-artist Andrew Dera in October 2015. The town’s marketing committee, Dewey Beach Lion’s Club and the hotel’s previous owner worked together to get the mural created.

Pires said he didn’t have a problem with the mural, but ultimately, he said, the mural is inconsistent with the overall image and plan for the hotel.

With the land of the hotel added to the Rusty Rudder restaurant and parking lot property, Highway One now owns more than the 80,000-square-foot minimum threshold of contiguous land that triggers relaxed bulk standards under Dewey code. Pires said there are no plans for expansion.

“I like the Rudder the way it is,” he said. “I like the hotel the way it is.”

The new hotel isn’t the only change for the Highway One Company. Pires has put Jimmy’s Grille in Bridgeville up for sale. He said the reason is simple – the rest of Highway One’s businesses are within a handful of miles of Dewey, and the nearly 70-mile round trip to Bridgeville is getting to be too much.

“It makes money. It’s never not done well; I just don’t want to do it anymore,” he said. “I can’t send people there if I don’t want to make the drive myself.”

For more information on Hotel Dewey, 1409 Coastal Highway, go to www.hoteldewey.com or call 302-227-4343.